The 411 Wrestling Top 5 1.14.09: Week 5 – Worst Gimmicks

Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling’s Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions. At the end, based on where all these matches rank on people’s list, we will create the 411 Wrestling Top 5 list. The scoring is very similiar to the Wrestler of the Week as it looks like this:

#1 Choice – 5 points
#2 Choice – 4 points
#3 choice – 3 points
#4 Choice – 2 points
#5 Choice – 1 point
Honorable Mentions will break ties, but get no points.

Also, in the case of a tie, the most votes win, regardless of where it is listed in the individual Top 5. I will also use this rule in the event that one match is mentioned more often, but is one point behind. For example, one second place vote and two Honorable Mentions will defeat simply one first place vote.

So, on to this week’s topic…

THE TOP 5 WORST GIMMICKS EVER

Yeah, I don’t know why I thought of this one. Then again, I don’t know what the WWE was thinking with half of the name changes they made for debuting superstars. But even those can sometimes turn good, unlike anything WCW did after the ratings war turned against them once and for all. Of course, for every genius gimmick that is designed, there are at least two that stink worse than The Boogeyman’s diet. I guess that means for every Doink and his three midgets (1/2 a person each), there is indeed a Spirit Squad. That is, if you actually liked that gimmick…

So what did our great group of writers select? Let’s find out…

Julian Bond

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Kizarny – Usually I have a tendency to give new gimmicks a chance to show themselves before I bash it to pieces just based on the pre-debut promos (i.e. Boogeyman & Sprit Squad…who I now think aren’t that bad). But after seeing Kizarmy’s debut on Smackdown, while the actual wrestler isn’t too bad in the ring, I think that a gimmick about a “carny worker” can really only go so far. Hopefully a part of it won’t soon involve scamming people out of money in a ring-toss game.

5.Kerwin White (done by Chavo Guerrero) – Poor Chavo Guerrerro. You would think that by the mere legacy of his last name alone would be good enough to carry as a gimmick. But the writers (or who knows, maybe Chavo himself) apparently thought differently. This gimmick, which had Guerrero dye his hair blond and dress like a horrible stereotype of a “yuppie, golf-playing white person”, wasn’t just bad for the obvious lameness of its limited range (i.e. taglines like “If it ain’t Kerwin White, it ain’t right”…kinda wrong, ain’t it?), but mostly because of the fact that a pretty good grappler like Chavo shouldn’t have had to resort to doing silly stuff like this.

4.Naked Mideon – I’ll admit. When I first saw this gimmick, I totally laughed my teenage ass off back in my high school days. Seeing Mideon in a fanny pack/thong making his opponents scared crapless because no one wanted to touch him was initially great. But after a few matches, the laughter slowly disappeared and then it became horribly tiring because of the fact the gimmick was still going on.

3.KISS Demon – Wow. In its dying days, WCW was the supreme king of horribly bad gimmicks. One in particular was the very, VERY lame KISS Demon. Like other the poor souls who suffer the same fate, the man behind the gimmick (Dale Tolborg) wasn’t THAT bad in the ring. But the fact that his gig was as a wrestler who dressed as a member of a old rock band was as obvious a sell-out move as it was a very horrible gimmick idea.

2.No Limit Soldiers – Speaking of “sell-out”, when I originally saw the rappers known as the “No Limit Soldiers” headed by No Limit rap label owner and artist Master P on a broadcast of Monday Night Nitro, I honestly thought right then and there that it spelled the eventually end of WCW. When WCW made a horribly big deal about signing the rap label to a wrestling deal and then gave them their own stable in hopes of drawing a “wider audience”, the results were horrendous. Not only did the gimmick fail horribly in getting over and the stable’s wrestlers were really crappy in the ring, their intended rivals, the heel stable “The West Texas Rednecks” ended up becoming face due to how badly the No Limit Soldiers failed to connect to the fans. Well…at least I can thank them for helping Curt Hennig put over the country song “Rap Is Crap”, and I really don’t even like country music.

1.Dr. Issac Yankem – One of the first gimmicks used by the man now known as WWE’s Kane. Even as a kid, I knew how retarded this gimmick was. A dentist who’s….evil! Oh…I get it…I think. Back then in the WWE, they were million dollar men, clowns, tax men, Latino stereotypes, and garbage men, but nothing made as little sense as a big, tall mean-looking wrestling dentist. Thank God, Kane found a much better gig.

John Meehan

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Meat – Remember Sean Stasiak? No? Probably better that way.

Black Reign – As derivative a getup as they come, the less said about Dustin’s “evil Goldust” schtick, the better.

5.The Legion Of Doom Sequels and Reboots – The “Road Warriors” may well have been the single greatest and most influential tag team of all time, but shortly following their initial stint in the WWF as the newly re-Christened “Legion Of Doom?” Hawk and Animal’s gimmick was just about as bad as it gets. From Rocko the ventriloquist dummy, to suicide attempts by alcoHawklic Mike Hegstrand, to the lame duck induction of Road Warrior Puke, all the way through a sad attempt at Road Warrior Heidenriech, just about every subsequent incarnation of this duo was pretty much pro wrestling’s equivalent of a direct-to-video bargain bin sequel.

4.Beaver Cleavage – When a gimmick is so bad that the performer actually works an angle where he sheds it on live television, you just *KNOW* you’ve got a stinker on your hands. Sister of Love/Headbanger Mosh/Fun-loving Chaz from New Jersey/etc. had a career filled with d.o.a. gimmicks, but none was worse than his incestuous take on the clean-cut Beaver Cleaver. And when playing a Flying Nun looks BETTER by comparison? Yeesh.

3.The KISS Demon – Apparently, this ill-conceived mainstream music tie-in was the brainchild of then-WCW head Eric Bischoff, who thought it’d be good business to hop in bed with Gene Simmons and roll out a wrestling army of KISS inspired characters, complete with top-level promotion and guaranteed main event contests. Unfortunately for Bischoff (but fortunately for WCW fans the world over), Dale Torborg’s “Demon,” the first in what was supposed to be a long line of grapplers donning a KISS gimmick failed so miserably that a second KISS wrestler never even saw the light of day. Too bad it didn’t fail sooner.

2.The Shockmaster – Poor Fred Ottman. The Shockmaster gimmick was doomed to fail from the moment they stuck his fat head into a hastily spraypainted and glitter-clad Stormtrooper helmet, but things went from bad to worse from the second the poor shlub hit the floor — err, stage. Immortalized in one of the very first viral videos of wrestling bloopers, The Shockmaster gimmick gets bonus stinker points for not being abandoned immediately following his disasterous debut. YouTube it to relive one of the lamest moments the pseudo-sport has ever seen.

1.The Red Rooster – This one scores my number one spot specifically because of how mind boggling it wasted the talent behind it. Terry Taylor arrived to the WWF in 1998 with tremendous technical ability, a boatload of charisma, a healthy dose of boyish good looks, and a slew of female fans. Immediately, he became “The Red Rooster” — a Bobby Heenan flunkie, booked as completely incompetent to the point where he’d lose just about every single match after stopping mid-contest to ask his manager for directions on what to do next. By the time he turned on Heenan a year or so later, he decided to embrace the nickname by flapping his arms like a bird and dying the middle of his hair to look like a bright red rooster’s comb. Taylor’s career never recovered.

Owain J. Brimfield

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Arachnaman – Quite possibly the worst contribution the Armstrong family ever made to the business.

Black Reign – You wouldn’t think such a recent gimmick would have already gone down in history as one of the worst of all time, but there you go.

Tugboat – poor Fred Ottman; I’ve no doubt Shockmaster will be mentioned elsewhere, so let me dredge up this wreckage of a gimmick.

5.Akeem the African Dream – From One Man Gang to this? Akeem, essentially a fat white man trying to be Shaft, was pretty close to the bone when it came to potentially offensive racist stereotypes, with horrible skits like the one where Akeem and Slick proclaimed some random ghetto to be “deepest darkest Africa” while a faux-tribal ritual was conducted in the background. That Akeem teamed with the Big Boss Man and still managed to be the less talented, most irritating half of the duo speaks volumes.

4.Roadblock – It’s a fat man dressed as a road! Brilliant. Not to be confused with the slightly more entertaining Roadkill, the ominous man with the “Dead End” chest carried a road barrier to ringside, and “drove” the fans crazy with his antics. Get it? “Drove”, because he’s dressed as a road! Yeah, that joke was about as successful as this gimmick.

3.Beetlejuice / The Juicer – I’m not sure what was more humiliating, the fact that someone decided a wrestling version of Beetlejuice would be a good idea, the multiple connotations the name “The Juicer” could imply in the wrestling business, or the fact that the guy portraying him was a convicted rapist. Perhaps weirdest of all, the man behind the facepaint had the distinction of inventing the frog splash. Let’s forget this one and move swiftly onwards.

2.Isaac Yankem, DDS – Early 90s WWF saw Vince play out all his childhood fears on screen, with evil taxmen, clowns and sailors dominating the heel scene. The most ludicrous of all was the evil 7′ dentist Isaac Yankem. If you’re going to do a menacing odontologist shtick, why not try a Marathon Man homage instead of the comedy crapfest that was Yankem? Thankfully the man behind the gimmick was later allowed to atone for his shittiness as one of the most successful masked wrestlers the WWF had ever seen.

1.The Narcissist – Perhaps not the out-and-out “worst” gimmick ever, but Lex Luger’s early stint in the WWF certainly wins the award for least subtle gimmick of all time. Narcissism as a character trait has long been a staple of heels from Bobby Eaton to Rick Martel, but going as overboard as they did with Luger, actually hyping him as Narcissus and having him pose in front of mirrors pre-match, was just ridiculous. You might as well have had “The Beer-Drinking Bald Redneck” Steve Austin or “The Man Who pretends to be kind of a zombie” Mark Calloway.

Jarrod Westerfeld

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The Johnsons – I could have easily gone with The Yeti or The Flying Elvis’s or even Jim Herd’s brilliant idea of Big Josh and his dancing bears, but TNA’s concept of a tag team wearing full-body flesh colored suits with matching masks. It’s the running gag of innuendos as they were Richard and Rod Johnson. A horrible idea straight out of TNA, and this was early into their inception.

Max Moon / The Comet Kid – Remember when Konan was with the WWF? Remember that he was a cybernetic warrior hailing from both the future and outer space? Probably best you don’t.

Seven – Easily a horrible gimmick given how quickly it was scratched, and no less on live television where it was ragged on by the very man playing the character, Dustin Rhodes. It could have had potential given how big the gothic Undertaker gimmick was at the time but it quickly became another in a long line of shoot gimmicks aimed at mocking the competition.

5.Oklahoma – The spoof of Jim Ross as portrayed by wrestling writing dickhead Ed Ferrara. Upon their entry of WCW Russo and Ferrara had gotten the ‘brilliant’ idea to mock their former boss in a manner that would demean JR in such a tasteless manner. There was no good in this gimmick, it was nothing more than a bad pun on JR’s reputation that went beyond bad taste, plus it ended up in further hurting the company as the writers brought in to help the company spent more time and energy doing shit like this than writing good material.

4.Xanta Clause – What more of a bad idea do you need than an evil Santa Clause that was bought and sold for by Ted DiBiase? The evil twin of Santa Clause who would steal presents and hailed from the South Pole was brought in to feud with Savio Vega long before DiBiase would bring in The Ringmaster. It’s an oddity that this was even considered as an idea worth running with but there it was, in the flesh and part of the WWF’s history for approximately a month.

3.The Red Rooster – No other gimmick has crippled or damaged a career much like this one. Terry Taylor was seen as one of the best young rising stars to enter into the main fold back in the late 80’s, with a huge future sitting before him and quickly it vanished as he was booked as nothing more than a flunkie to Bobby Heenan. Eventually he’d start looking like his name, dying the center of his head red and flapping his arms around like a bird, but he wouldn’t even get the type of pop that Koko B. Ware received. When Koko B. Ware receives a better reception than you, you’ve done something wrong – something horribly fucking wrong.

2.The Shockmaster – What more need to be said about this gimmick? What started out as a plan to bring in Fred Ottman into a prominent role to help Sting and the British Bulldog handles the Masters of the Powerbomb and Harlem Heat turned into the biggest joke in the industry. His debut is historic for the amount of failure that it contained and the humor in it as Sid still tried to sell this entity as a threat to him and his unit, while the rest of the cast, Flair included, could be heard trying to contain their laughter. What’s worse is that overtime the gimmick changed up its look to showcase Fred as just an ordinary guy in overalls and a hard hat. This gimmick is what this list is about, truly.

1.The Gobbeldygooker – No other gimmick had as much build to its big revelation as this monstrosity of a Hector Guerrero gimmick. For weeks leading into Survivor Series all attention was centered on the egg and what it contained inside. It was universally received negatively, both from the live crowd in attendance and home viewers. It is possibly the only gimmick to leave a wrestler breaking down into tears after the debuting performance and ended up lending its name to Wrestlecrap’s award, the Gooker award.

Chris Lansdell

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Misfits in Action – Take a bunch of talented wrestlers, combine them with a whore, and give them double entendre names. Vintage Russo.

Matt Morgan, stuttering giant – How was this ever going to get him over?

5.Beaver Cleavage – One of the early examples of Vince’s obsession with an incest angle. Poor Headbanger Mosh played some shitty gimmicks, and you’ll see another one very soon, but this was shitty AND wrong. With his “mother” Marianna they played up all sorts of sexual tension for the 3 weeks the gimmick was around, before it was mercifully dropped on live TV.

4.Sisters of Love – Poor Headbanger Mosh. Again. As if a 3-week stint as a moron with an Oedipus complex wasn’t bad enough, he had previously “enjoyed” a stint as half of a team of cross-dressing wrestling nuns. If I need to explain why that sucked, you’re reading the wrong column.

3.Duke “The Dumpster” Droese – Really I could have included any of the WWF “all our guys have two jobs” crowd here, but “The Dumpster” gets the nod because he collects trash, and this list is full of trash.

2.Saba Simba Before he was the World’s Strongest Manager, Tony Atlas was lucky enough to come out in full tribal dress, complete with spear. No, Vince isn’t racist AT ALL.

1.Oz – This wins for me, because it had so much potential. A huge guy with mystical powers and a smoky, eerie entrance? Seems to me that it got over in WWF pretty well. Wait, I know! Since Undertaker is so popular, we’ll improve it by adding characters from the movie to his entrance, dressing Kevin Sullivan up to look like Nebuchadnezzar as his manager and giving him A TRAINED MONKEY. The genius!

Robert S. Leighty Jr

HONORABLE MENTIONS

“Drunk” Hawk – This was all in bad taste, and it killed the images of Hawk I had as a kid. I didn’t want to see Hawk like this. I liked the kickass Hawk and I prefer to remember him that way.

Renegade – This ended up in tragedy and I don’t fault the kid for taking the gig, but this was bad on many levels. He was nothing close to the Warrior and was being pushed over guys he had no right going over that early in his career.

5.Black Reign – Seven gets pass because it was at least snuffed out rather quickly. Russo got another chance and we got Black Reign. Nothing bu garbage here, and the introduction of the rat really topped things. Not that anything is wrong with wrestlers using animals to help them (ie: Jake w/ Damian, Koko w/ Frankie, and Bulldogs w/ Matilda), but the minute the rat went on a bowl I lost all hope. Thankfully Dustin went back to wearing gold latex and touching himself. Yes, that’s an improvement.

4.Fake Razor and Fake Diesel – Anybody wonder why WCW was kicking the piss out the WWE? While Hall and Nash were revolutionizing the wrestling world with the n.W.o, the WWE decided to put 2 no names in the roles left behind by the departing Outsiders. Throw in Jim Ross turning heel and justifying these 2 impostors as his charges made things all the crappier.

3.The Goobeldygooker – There was a lot of speculation about what was in that egg? My friend had it convinced Elizabeth was coming out with nothing but a smile. Yes, he was a pervert. I was just hoping it was a new wrestler or someone from another promotion. Instead we got a Guerrero in a turkey suit. Thankfully this didn’t stick either, but we had to sit through Gene dancing with this thing on PPV.

2.The Yeti – What the hell was WCW thinking? Sure it was a 1 time appearance at Halloween Havoc 1995, but the fact that a giant mummy broke from a block of ice and climbed into the ring to help the Giant double team dry hump Hulk Hogan has scared me for life. Thanks for that one WCW. Seriously, what the hell?

1.The Black Scorpion – This goes here because it was horribly botched from the start. They couldn’t get the guy they wanted to play the role. They had this monster heel do magic tricks, and this was supposed to help newly crowned champion Sting? The fact this ran as long as it did and headlined Starrcade is more than enough to make this #1. Add on that it put a black spot on the career of Ric Flair.

Damian Braun

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Oz – Played by Kevin Nash in early 90s WCW and blatantly ripped off from L. Frank Baum’s imagination, Oz was a giant, silver-haired wizard. Sadly, his only power was his ability to generate fan apathy.

Gobbledy Gooker – Though Lazer Tron was pretty bad, Hector Guerrero’s Gobbledy Gooker was certainly more memorable bad gimmick – perhaps because it was a literal (and figurative) turkey. Though the gimmick certainly warrants mentioning, I can’t place it in the top-5 since it was abandoned by the WWF so quickly.

The Johnsons – From the early days of TNA, this was the tag team Richard and Rod Johnson, two guys dressed in flesh colored body suits (with masks), essentially looking like two mammoth, erect dick-rods. The only saving grace is that their masks weren’t purple.

5. Shockmaster – The gimmick itself wasn’t much worse than Tugboat, but the Shockmaster’s infamous introduction at Clash of the Champions 24 effectively killed the character before Ole Anderson’s voice-overed threats could even be delivered. Worse yet, WCW played Shockmaster like a legitimate threat up through the 1993 WarGames – where he made Kole (of Harlem Heat) submit to a devastating bear hug.

4. The Repo Man – This is really a failure of concept. If 1980s comedies have taught me anything, it’s that the life of repo man is always intense. If only this gimmick lived to the same credo. Instead, WWF’s Repo Man just stole stuff. So of course, he needs a lone ranger mask while doing so, that way nobody can identify him in a line-up. This concept would be fine if he were the Klepto-Kid, but he flimsily wrapped lame stories about delinquent payments from the fellow wrestlers – which was as confusing as the tire tracks on his tights.

3. The Giant Gonzalez – The worst of a long linage of bad-gimmicked super-villains attempting to take down the Undertaker. Obviously, the best way to make a eight foot tall giant beanstalk more threatening is to airbrush muscles on his bodysuit and strategically hot glue fur to the shoulders, outer legs, forearms and crotch. This, coupled with the scant natural wrestling possessed by Jorge Gonzalez, this heel’s tenure with WWF wasn’t just embarrassing, but excruciating too.

2.The Red Rooster – The standard-bearer of bad gimmicks. Thankfully it wasn’t assigned to Curt Henning, or it might have ruined his credibility. Instead, it devastated the career of accomplished mid-South wrestler Terry Taylor. Taylor was assigned the nickname Red Rooster by then manager Bobby Heenan. Unfortunately, Taylor’s character certainly wasn’t cocky – his gimmick began with him second-guessing his offense and usually getting pinned while he asked for advice from Heenan. Even after he turned face, he continued to strut and peck around the ring, wearing red tights, a red cape and sporting a red comb-like mohawk through his hair. If you can imagine the Killer Bees buzzing around the ring and waggle dancing, you can begin to consider how ridiculous it all was.

1.Dungeon of Doom – The assortment of such terrible gimmicks as Zodiac, the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, the Shark, the Leprechaun, and more … makes this WCW faction one of bad gimmicks to an exponential power. United in their goal to destroy Hulkamania (in 1995, mind you), the group even had room for semi-awful gimmicks like Kamala, the Giant (playing the son of Andre the Giant), the Barbarian, Maxx Muscle and Hugh Morrus. Even the group’s formation is laughable, as Kevin Sullivan, urged by voices in his head, finds “the Master” in “parts unknown” and is simply told that Hulk Hogan has to go. Unfortunately, the group was more laughable than threatening. Not only would each of the gimmicks in the group qualify for top five placements, but each of the bad gimmicks assembled together makes the DoD obvious winners (losers?).

Ryan Byers

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The “New” Anything – New Foundation. New Blackjacks. New Midnight Express. New Blackjacks. If you want to get two guys over, saddling them with a name well-remembered by fans will NOT do it, as the inevitable comparisons will just drag the up and comers down.

Mexico’s Kiddie Gimmicks – I can’t in good conscience put them on the main list since they’re normally in very small indies and are normally geared towards children, but there is still something ridiculous about the fact that lucha libre has created wrestling versions of the Power Rangers, Mighty Mouse, Shrek’s Donkey, Mucha Lucha, and THE TELETUBBIES.

Curry Man: TNA Edition – Curry Man in Japan? Great. Curry Man for the first month or two in TNA? Great. Curry Man after that? A ridiculous racist caricature that had no place on television in the twenty-first century.

5.Beaver Cleavage – A couple of my colleagues have already pointed out the fact that that doing a thinly-veiled incest angle is in poor taste and that the jokes which the WWF included in its Cleavage vignettes weren’t all that great. However, there is one key point that a lot of people miss when trashing the Beaver, and I’m going to ask it right now: How the hell was this gimmick actually supposed to translate in to professional wrestling? What angle were you going to be able to run based on the fact that this man was a poor parody of a 1950’s sitcom? How would this factor in to a feud? I suspect that is the real reason that we saw the character dropped so quickly.

4.Xanta Klaus – Much like Beaver Cleavage, I have to put this character on the list because it seems so poorly thought out. Even if you ignore the fact that booking an evil Santa Claus just screams, “We are a product that only exists to entertain children,” this was a boneheaded idea. Though the hype for Christmas seems to begin earlier and earlier each year, the fact still remains that an evil Santa would only be relevant for at most two months of every twelve month cycle. For the rest of the year, you’d be stuck with a fellow who meant little if nothing to your fanbase.

3.The Fake Undertaker – There have been a lot of ridiculous storylines involving the Undertaker. I think that this one has to take the cake, though. A ‘Taker impostor is one thing. However, the introduction of all sorts of cartoony “supernatural” tricks and Leslie Nielsen as the goofy detective trying to solve the mystery of the Undertaker made the Under-faker all the more gag inducing.

2.Glacier – I don’t think that you can imagine how obnoxious Glacier was unless you lived through it. For months upon months, we were bombarded with bumpers on WCW programming telling us that “Blood Runs Cold.” I’m not opposed to a slow build, but you have to pull the trigger on your build when interest is on its peak. Sadly, the promos hyping Glacier’s debut went on well beyond that, meaning that he had already been turned in to a running joke by the time that he made his debut. And where did he debut? On Sunday afternoon show WCW {Pro} against, of all people, The Gambler. (Now there is an underrated job guy.) The worst part is that all of the build lead up to absolutely nothing. Glacier was a mediocre pro wrestler who went on a directionless winning streak, never moving up the card and never amounting to anything. All of that hype to make somebody in to a major star is one thing, but all of that hype to debut a guy and position him as a perpetual midcarder is the waste of everybody’s time.

1.Master P’s No Limit Soliders – Forget the fact that this stable gave us southern-fried country boy Brad Armstrong transforming in to the hip hop loving “B.A.” Forget the fact that this stable gave us barely trained lugs “Swoll” and “4×4” working matches. The important thing to remember is that this THE prime example of a wrestling promotion listening to what its fans want and then doing the complete and utter opposite. Signed to a big money deal by WCW in the late 1990’s, Master P made several appearances on Nitro and pay per view, with each one being more nonsensical and less wrestling-related than the last. In particular, I recall P wasting what had to have been thirty minutes on Nitro throwing a BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR HIS COUSIN. Who could possibly have cared about that? Better yet was the fact that the heel faction built up to oppose the No Limit Soldiers, namely the West Texas Rednecks, wound up getting significantly better babyface reactions than did the guy who WCW was forking over millions of dollars to. Instead of doing the sensible double turn so that the storyline would match up with the fans’ reactions, WCW continued to force the flawed storyline down everybody’s throats, turning off many in their audience in the process.

Stephen Randle

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Gobbledy Gooker – You know, to be fair, what the hell else were you expecting to come out of a giant egg on Thanksgiving?

“Diesel” and “Razor Ramon” – The height of Vince’s delusions, he actually believed that it was the gimmicks, not the men behind them, that made Kevin Nash and Scott Hall into big stars, and that fans would accept any two guys doing the same shtick.

Brutus Beefcake – Pick a gimmick, he’s got lots.

5.Dolph Ziggler – I’m being a little harsh on Dolph, since they actually allowed him to show off his skill (before returning him to backstage filler again), and the potential is there for him to rise above it. But Dolph gets this spot as an example of how WWE has once again lost their way when it comes to creating bankable gimmicks, a problem that led to the craptacular “job” gimmicks of the New Generation oh so long ago. So, Dolph is a guy who shakes everyone’s hand and introduces himself. That’s his gimmick. Based on that fact, are we supposed to boo him? Cheer him? Care one way or the other about him? WWE tells us to boo him as a heel by putting him up against “good guys”, but has he really done anything particularly bad? Is there anything beneath the surface gimmick of “guy who shakes hands with everyone”? How does that translate into any sort of feud or PPV match? Dolph is a perfect example of the “three seconds of thought, a career of regret” gimmick that can kill promising careers dead instantly, but that WWE has insisted on putting out for many, many years.

4.Rocky Maivia, The Blue Chipper – You want to know why this gets a spot? Stop and think about it for a moment: this gimmick nearly killed the career of Duane Johnson within the first six months of debuting. They gave the future most electrifying man in sports entertainment a gimmick that was so bad that he was booed out of the arena despite being a face character, and several people, including Mick Foley, have been quoted at the time as saying that they thought WWE should have just gotten rid of him. Were it not for one really, really well-timed shoulder injury, the possibility exists that we might never have gotten The Rock, and the mind shudders back from that thought.

3.Beaver Cleavage – A perfect example of Vince Russo’s ADD and Vince McMahon’s underlying love of sexual innuendo in everything he puts on TV, I had the privilege (I guess) of actually seeing the one match that Beaver Cleavage actually wrestled on TV before he dropped the gimmick. And for those who have blanked it from their memories, don’t forget the end result of the gimmick: his “mother”/girlfriend revealed that she had been physically abused, and everyone in the locker room blamed and attacked Chaz even though he claimed innocence. And then, just in case this whole thing wasn’t stupid enough, they revealed that she faked her injuries. Truly a proud moment for battered women everywhere.

2.The Shockmaster – Yeah, yeah, he fell through a doorway and was Fred Ottman. That’s what people remember. I think the more important thing, though, is that for his introduction, he was called “The Shockmaster” and dressed up in a Star Wars stormtrooper mask covered in silver paint. What the hell was he supposed to be? What’s a Shockmaster? And were they hoping that we wouldn’t recognize a prop from the most popular movie trilogy of all time (well, at the time, anyway)? That gimmick was dead even before he tripped over the stage.

1.The Spirit Squad – Yes, there have been more offensive gimmicks than this group of overly peppy male cheerleaders, but in my opinion, there have been few that were as poorly thought out. Seriously, how was this supposed to result in anyone getting over? First of all, there were five guys, all introduced at once (and for the introductory cheer, they weren’t mic’d, so there was no way to hear their names anyway). Secondly, other than Mikey being about a foot shorter than the others, there was no real way to differentiate between the individual wrestlers, which WWE even emphasized by making all five (even the one who didn’t wrestle) Tag Team champions. Thirdly, after screwing around in the tag ranks for a while, they were paired with Vince and put against the newly reformed D-X, given even more TV time, and turned into incompetent lackeys who couldn’t even win when the odds were 5-on-2. An attempt was made at the end to distance Kenny from the group in terms of skill, but by then, the entire gimmick was pretty much dead in the water, and they were unceremoniously dumped back to developmental. The fact that only one member of the team ever resurfaced (any hey, I already discussed him here too) pretty much seals the deal. Spirit Squad managed to essentially ruin the careers of five young wrestlers all at once, and that is unforgiveable.

Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that the gimmick itself was stupid and annoying. A group of evil male cheerleaders? Who would ever want to watch that?

Rob McNew

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Kizarny – I want to be on the ground floor of the Kizarny sucks bandwagon.

GI Bro – Because Booker T. wasn’t over enough he needed a gimmick overhaul.

Se7en – Any gimmick so stupid that it gets aborted on the very first promo the man cuts is deserving of at worst an honorable mention.

5.Doink & Dink The Clowns (Face Version) – Its been said a number of times by a number of different people that the original Doink was awesome. He was an evil sadistic heel clown. That wasn’t good enough however so they had to turn him face and give him a midget. Kind of sounds like someone currently in the ‘E today. Regardless Doink and Dink were far more annoying than Finlay and Hornswoggle ever were.

4.The Dragon – So Ricky Steamboat, one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, spends 3 years in the WWF in the mid 80’s. Even capturing the Intercontinental Championship in what is considered by some the match of the ‘80’s at Wrestlemania III. After leaving the WWF he went to the NWA to capture the World Title from Ric Flair in the greatest trilogy of matches in history. After all that he resigns with WWF. What do they do with him? If you guessed, dress him up as a dragon and pretend like he’s a brand new guy then you win. He had a dragon outfit and even breathed fire. Worst part was he had only been gone 3 years. Imagine for a second if Christian debuts as Mr. Charisma, and no mention of his WWE history is ever mentioned on screen. That’s what we’re talking about here.

3.Chainsaw Charlie – So The WWF brings in Terry Funk in early ’98 to team with Cactus Jack. That story writes itself doesn’t it? I mean we had already established Foley’s backstory in ’97, and it was no mystery that the man idolized Funk. So instead of just bringing him in as “Hardcore Legend” Terry Funk they put a pair of pantyhose on his head, give him a chainsaw, and pretend he’s a new guy. That lasted about a week because it was easier to pull one over on the fans in 1991 than it was in 1997. He still played the Charlie character, but they at least acknowledged it was Funk.

2.“The African Dream” Akeem – Another case of taking a guy who was doing just fine in a previous gimmick and making him over for no reason. The One Man Gang goes to some African Tribal ceremony attended by Slick and Mean Gene to find his inner black man or something. He comes out as a dancing fool dressed in African garb. This was made even sillier by the fact that they teamed him with The Big Boss Man to form the Twin Towers which was supposed to be a dominant tag team that was supposed to be a threat to Hogan and Savage. Now ask yourself, what is more intimidating? Boss Man & Akeem or Boss Man & The Gang? This would have been the most racially insensitive gimmick in WWE history had it not been for…

1.Saba Simba – Mr. USA Tony Atlas. Current manager of Mark Henry, WWE Hall of Famer, and former WWF Tag Team Champion with Rocky Johnson. He battled drug addiction problems in the late 1980’s and returned to WWF in 1991 ready to make a comeback. How did the WWF reward one of their former stars for beating their drug problem? By dressing him up as an African Tribesman of course. Atlas was forced to wrestle barefoot, with a loincloth, and he had spears. Seriously, he carried around spears. Vince can’t blame this one on Michael Hayes as we were still a few years from him joining the company.

Larry Csonka

HONORABLE MENTIONS

SE7EN – WCW spends a ton of money to get Dustin Rhodes, realizes they can’ have him be Goldust, spends more money on the makeover, video packages and rigging to float him to the ring, only to have him shoot on the gimmick and become plain old Dustin Rhodes.

MANTAUR – To quote Jim Cornette, “Jesus Fucking Christ, who thought THIS was a good idea, and why did I have to manage him!?”

THE MANY PHASES OF BRAD ARMSTRONG – Hey, let’s take this talented guy, who has good matches with everyone and keep reinventing him under 45 different gimmicks!

5. THE YETI – Any gimmick which sees a giant man get together with another giant man to double dry hump Hulk Hogan has to make the top five!

4. THE NEW ANYTHING – Ryan Byers and I agree here, in wrestling, you are DOOMED the moment that “New” is placed in front of your gimmick. The New Rockers, The New Blackjacks, The New Foundation, The New Midnight Express, ALL DOOMED TO FAILURE!

3. THE RED ROOSTER – In a case of Vince McMahon hating anything he didn’t create, he takes Terry Taylor, a very good worker who could have been a great addition to the mid-card or tag ranks and turns him into a complete goof.

2. THE MANY PHASES OF ED LESLIE – * Eddie Golden
* Eddie Boulder (AWA/NWA)
* Dizzy Hogan (NWA)
* Brutus Beefcake
* Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake
* Furface
* Bruther Bruti (WCW)
* The Butcher (WCW)
* The Man With No Name
* The Zodiac (WCW)
* The Bootyman (WCW)
* The Disciple (nWo)
* Ed Leslie (WCW)
* Brute Force (Australia)

Do I really have to say anything? Hell, I may be missing some…

1. AKEEM THE AFRICAN DREAM – In another case of Vince McMahon hating anything he didn’t create, he takes the bad ass ONE MAN GANG, a man that Bill Watts booked to be an unstoppable force and who wasn’t bad at all for a big guy and turns him into a complete goof. This is one of those changes that angered me.

Jeremy Thomas

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The Johnsons – Wrestling penises! That’s an awesome idea, thanks TNA!

Naked Mideon – Something I never, EVER want to see again is Dennis Knight’s bare ass. No, really. EVER.

Stuttering Matt Morgan – Take a legitimate monster of a wrestler with a lot of charisma…and make him stutter his way through his promos. Yeah, that was a smart move.

5.Heidenreich, Rapist and Poetry Reader – Ahh, poor Jon Heidenreich. The man is a veritable plethora of terrible gimmicks from his time in the ‘E. Anyone remember when Little Johnny was telling him what to do? Yeah, good thing that was dropped. Remember LOD Heidenreich? Terrible also. But the worst was when he would run in on random matches or attack fans, then read his poetry that described how much he hated everything. This had two “highlights”…one where he faced off with Snitsky backstage at the ’05 Royal Rumble and they shared an appreciation for each other’s poetry and unborn child-killing, and the last (and most famous) on the September 16, 2004 SmackDown. Heidenreich inexplicably decided to rape Michael Cole against a wall backstage, then read him a poem about how Cole should fear him. He then made Cole thank him for the poem and let him go. In an interview later, Heidenreich was asked about it and he said that Vince came up with it in a dream one night. Fear Vince McMahon’s dreams if Heidenreich raping an announcer is one of the ones he thinks is good television, people. Heidenreich then said “I’m just happy I was doing the raping and not getting raped.” I just wish all of us fans could feel the same.

4.Se7en – I almost wanted to put Goldust here since it’s the one that started it all, but Se7en was just too terrible for me to pass up. How the hell did David Fincher not sue AOL/Time Warner for this, to start with? It’s the EXACT same name as the movie. Even the 7 in the middle. Maybe it’s because it died so damn quickly (and thankfully). I remember watching Se7en’s debut live on Nitro, and everyone in the room was just staring quietly with a “What the FUCK?” look on their faces as poor Dustin floated his way to the ring. When the gimmick was shot down, we actually were relieved…but for the amount of time he was around, Se7en deserves to be on this list.

3.Bastion Booger – With the possible exception of Ed Leslie, Mike Shaw has to have the worst track record with gimmicks ever in the big leagues. After having success in Stampede Wrestling as a tough heel, he came to WCW as Norman the Lunatic, a psych inmate who was kept in control by Teddy Long via threat of being returned to the asylum. Then he became Trucker Norm before going to the WWF, where someone had the brilliant idea to call him “Friar Ferguson.” When complaints by the Catholic Church killed that one, what did the ‘F come up with? Bastion Booger, the single-most disgusting gimmick in wrestling. I mean that literally…Bastion was a slovenly, nasty bastard who wrestling in gear that didn’t look like it had been washed since the War of 1812. Booger never went anywhere, and Shaw was released in 1994, although he did make a re-appearance on the Raw 15th Anniversary special where ‘H suggested that Big Dick Johnson might be his son. Excuse me while I go vomit.

2.Gobbeldy Gooker – The only reason this isn’t number one is that he was only around for a very short time upon his reveal. But the massive amount of build-up that occurred as the ‘F carted this stupid giant egg around to show after show was insane, and when the egg finally hatched at Survivor Series to reveal a giant turkey-thing that would proceed to dance with Mean Gene in the ring while people around the world reeled from the stupidity. I mean, sure a lot of us weren’t expecting anything amazing to come out of the egg, but that was just new levels of dumb, and it’s one of the biggest Vince McMahon-related failures ever known. You know, besides the XFL.

1.Black Scorpion – THE terrible gimmick by which all other gimmicks should be measured. The Black Scorpion debuted in August of 1990. He was supposed to be a way for Ole Anderson to come back out of retirement, but Ole’s arm got broken in a training accident and they were stuck. In the meantime, they shuffled wrestlers in and out of the role while Sting tried to unmask him and the announcers speculated if it was a former friend of Sting’s or not. The Scorpion did bad illusion tricks with plants in the audience, like this was supposed to be scary? Wow. Finally, at Starrcade 1990 Sting beat the Scorpion and unmasked him, revealing, of all people, Ric Flair. A horrible, terrible gimmick that was ruined by every step they took.

Michael Bauer

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Naked Mideon – Big fat man runs around in nothing more than a fanny pack… ::SHUDDERS:: I don’t think I need to say much more than this.

St-st-st-stutering Matt Morgan – Didn’t they learn anything from the Dudley Boys?

The Red Rooster – It wasn’t the worst gimmick in terms of getting over, it just killed a great career.

5.The Yeti – Ok, so what can we possibly do to try and kill Hulkamania? Well, we get a group of people ranging from Kevin Sullivan hearing voices to Beefcake as The Zodiac to a giant guy wrapped like a mummy who would show up once and literally hump Hulk Hogan and any allies he had in between him and Paul Wight. And people wonder why in the hell WCW tanked?

4.Issac Yankem, DDS – Ok, as a kid, I’m afraid of the dentist already. After watching this, it is no wonder I have half a dozen cavities after having braces as a teenager. Seriously, no gimmick scared me more than The Undertaker as a kid, but he was supposed to make us fearful. This wasn’t the same type of gimmick.

3.The Spirit Squad – If I really, really wanted to I’m sure I could put these guys individually from five through one and nobody would blame me at all. You had five guys dressed as male cheerleaders, having enough fake charisma combined where they could spare some to Lance Storm and still be utterly annoying. Not to mention that they were tag team champions and automaticlly given the Demolition Rule for no rhyme or reason. I mean seriously, what could possibly be worse than this…

2.Hi… I’m Dolph Ziggler. – Oh yes, THIS is worse! I swear, I am waiting for the day that he comes up to someone and says “My name is Dolph Ziggler, and I’m going to knock your lights out.” And then he proceeds to get his lights knocked out by someone who has no need to get himself over anyway. I think the best will be when he faces Charlie Haas, who comes out as Nicky of the Spirit Squad. HA!

1.The Gobbledy Gooker – Ok, let’s think about this. You have this huge hype and an enormous egg for weeks before the Survivor Series. And on the big day, you hatch out a fucking turkey and have him dance with Mean Gean??? Yeah, is there any doubt why this is my number one? Thankfully they pulled the plug immediately.

So with all said and done (and a shit load of puking just by having to remember these), here is the 411 Wrestling’s Overall Top 5 Worst Gimmicks Ever.

5. Akeem the African Dream: 10 points (1 1st place vote, 1 2nd place vote, 1 5th place vote)

4. Issac Yankem, DDS: 11 points (1 1st place vote, 1 2nd place vote, 1 4th place vote)

3. The Shockmaster: 13 points (3 2nd place votes, 1 5th place vote)

2. The Red Rooster: 15 points (1 1st place vote, 1 2nd place vote, 2 3rd place votes, 1 Honorable Mention)

1. The Gobbeldy Gooker: 17 points (2 1st place votes, 1 2nd place vote, 1 3rd place vote, 2 Honorable Mentions)